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Huh. that is very interesting. Pretty much everything makes sense to me. but the first sentence. I for the most part dont see a connection between wealth and freedom. Is there such a thing? (possibly exclusive ro NZ if I get it right?)

melissa 2y ago

You're right, there shouldn't be a connection between wealth and freedom. For instance, now I'm in a developing country and people here have very little money. Yet they feel so abundant. They give everything. They have a sense of freedom. It's hard to put in words. In New Zealand (& I presume many other developed countries) people have fallen slave to consumerism or society is falling apart. How can I describe it? Hmm there is a heaviness. A sense of demand that can't be achieved. A sense of 'hard' that shouldn't be there. It's in the edge of my consciousness 😅

But while wealth doesn't really determine freedom (I know this first hand coming out of hardship earlier in life myself), I think sometimes, even the person who has an inner sense of freedom, would also have a sense of heaviness in New Zealand unless they are doing really well financially. If that makes any sense? I guess we will only find out when (if) we move back someday. Maybe this is part of my fear of moving back there (I don't want to feel the weight of struggle in my homeland) 🤷‍♀️

Thank you so much for provoking my inner world. You are challenging my own limitations and there is nothing I love more than to see my limitations 💜🙏🏼🫂⚡️⚡️

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An Capone 🌗 2y ago

Well, yes, consumerism is a problem, but in my experience it is equally spread among (almost) the entire income spectrum. The only major difference I see is about what kinds of goods and services do people blindly consume depending largely on their income. Two exceptions I see are both the extremely rich and the extremely poor.

In fact that's why in my personal life I first and foremost differentiate consumers and producers and seek out producers. I can't be bothered to endlessly engage in conversations about watching movies, vacations, new gadgets and so on. I want to know what people create, regardless of what it is.

Lately it seems more and more as the most important categorization tool at hand. Not wealth, not beauty, not intelligence, not anything else, just whether a persons most intimate, passionate desire is to produce or to consume.

An Capone 🌗 2y ago

So is it more like a social pressure thing?

Maybe we are using the word "freedom" in a different way. Generally, when I say freedom I mean the outer freedom. Basically whether or not your natural (negative) rights are being limited or respected.

Lots of people when talk about freedom, they mean the inner freedom, meaning whether or not you are allowed to think for yourself, whether you can even comprehend thoughts contrary to popular belief and so on.

Is that it?

melissa 2y ago

There are so many elements of freedom. And it seems like the lines are so blurry haha 😂

In my opinion, and I am totally open to being wrong, I think the majority of people wouldn't understand freedom comes from within. I think people are so deeply conditioned and most of the people on this planet don't have the intrinsic motivation to seek that inner freedom. So although they may think they have freedom of thought, many (if not most) people don't actually have this freedom. They are perpetually stuck in front of multiple screens telling them what to think, what to fear and what to do, even how to live.

In New Zealand, people's outer freedom was technically there. However, the government is using systematic violence (coercion, manipulation and threats) to ensure people stay in line. For example, during covid times, people were bullied and coerced into taking vaccines. People who refused became the target of the programmed masses. The sheeple attacked those who were treading slowly. This is the heaviness, the hard, the stripping of humanity that I guess I tap into in the more developed nations. On that front, NZ is doing terribly. Many laws sneakily passed to ensure the government retains full control.

I think where I was going with the financial side of things is the vibrational aspect. I know that in many homes two parents working full time jobs barely make ends meet. That kind of life doesn't seem free to me, and that is the reality for a big proportion of the kiwi population. And I know that to change this, it has to start with the people and their mindset, but it's almost like the majority are trapped n in a zombie like bubble. So there is no progress unless people see and recognise they are being conditioned. I don't know if I'm making sense. I totally need to journal on this stuff 😆

An Capone 🌗 2y ago

I believe you are correct. Most people do not understand, that freedom comes from within. Surprisingly even most anarchists do not understand that. (in my experience) Or maybe they don't understand the implications of it. (for instance the impossibility of forcing people to be free, to want to be free)

I don't think that the covid mania was (still kinda is) specific to NZ. I saw it pretty much across the entire developed world. If you said CZ instead of NZ, it would apply to a letter to my home country of Czechia.

On the financial note, I am bit hesitant to agree. Unless there is something I am missing, struggling to make ends meet does not, imho, reduce freedom. It reduces luxury. I believe I am as free now, that I make over 2x the national average, as I was when I was homeless and literally begged for food money. Both inregard to the outer and inner freedom.

In fact I dare to say, that even people who struggle to make ends meet today still have a more luxurious lives than literal kings just a couple hundred years ago. (at least in developed countries)

I suspect the problem is of cognitive rsther than economic nature. What I mean is that in absolute terms, even the lower income classes have way more than we actually need, but we see, that other people have even way more than we do. The problem IMO is that we too often consider relative wealth, not absolute wealth. That pushes us to imitate lifestyles of those who have more than us, to compare ourselves to them instead of comparing our needs to what we already have now and what we possibly can have in the future.

melissa 2y ago

Ohhh this. Yes. You are sooo right. I get it on so many levels. Maybe it's my empathy that sways me to the economic side of freedom. It will be fun for me to explore this...

born rich (but love poor), messed up my life badly, solo parent on welfare (felt free and happy at my worst economic time), rebuilt myself from the inside out, constantly striving for more... Found more freedom through my travels, but I cannot shake the feeling that I was so privileged and felt the (not sure if it was envy, jealousy or just misunderstanding of my life) growing up. I am going to play on all of this tomorrow because something in here is going to help me break through to my next level 🤩🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

An Capone 🌗 2y ago

That is very interesting. For me, it's kind of the reverse. By embracing economic freedom I am swayed towards more empathetic positions.

Yes, the feeling of undeserved privilege is dangerous. I wasn't born filthy rich, but rich enough, that my parents did not have to take a loan to buy a second house when I was a teenager. It was exactly the feeling of undesired privilege that led to me making terrible decisions and eventually to me being homeless and struggling even way more than I secretly wished to. Even now, years later I am still paying for that.

If anything said here today helps you grow in any way, I'll be extremely satisfied. :)